"When I’m playing with Mertesacker, he’s much more experienced. He plays more in his position, talks to me a lot whereas Laurent is a faster player.

"Laurent is more similar to me. There are a few differences but the quality of their passing is something which gives me a lot of confidence.

"Communication helps too. Sometimes at the beginning we think that it’s not important to learn English, that the important thing is to play.

"It’s obvious that it’s important to play well but communication is very important when you play in defence, so I realised it was important for the defence for me to learn English when I was playing and training."